


Burning Skies

by PartyLines



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Did we really need a plot?, Explicit Language, F/M, Facebook: Dramione Fanfiction Writers, Gen, Grief, Nikita Gill, Post-War, Psychological Trauma, Rambling, dramione - Freeform, haunted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 11:37:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18222647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PartyLines/pseuds/PartyLines
Summary: Sometimes a change of heart comes just a little too late.Or: Hermione's late night letters to someone.Written for DFW's Nikita Gill: Never Apologising For Our Wild Challenge





	Burning Skies

**Author's Note:**

> Alpha love to **LadyKenz347** and **bourbonrain** , without whom I wouldn't have produced a thing! 
> 
> Unbeta'd-all mistakes (and nonsensical _stuff_ ) are my own. 
> 
> Big thanks to the DFW crew for hosting this challenge and giving me a source to feed my rambling to!

 

_I wish someone had warned me when I was younger, now I stay up all night and weep, the ghosts of everything you have loved and lost come back to haunt you in your sleep – Haunted, Nikita Gill_

* * *

 

 

Do you know what it is you do to me?

Not enough time has passed that I don’t still recall what you _did_ to me; to me, to my friends and to the heart of a school. We don’t have enough time for that.

There’s just not enough _time._

Are you a product of yourself, or of your surroundings? That’s the real question, isn’t it? Not now, of course, but it begs thought—one day. Maybe _after._ I’ll revisit this when I have nothing _but_ time to think of things that no longer matter in the immediate sense but will never cease to be important. I like to think you were a product of your surroundings, who became a product of himself. Yes. That’s it. It must be, because I would never have forgiven you otherwise.

But I did.

Forgive you I mean.

You know that don’t you? It was immediate—inexplicable and obvious all at once. With caution in your step and terror in the dart of your eyes, you came to us, and I felt my perception shift. Did you feel it to? That day so long ago on the doorstep of Headquarters? You must’ve, because from that first awkward, upturned evening, you spoke to me even as you skulked about as though afraid for your life (you should’ve been, you deserved to be).

You knew I would be kind, even though you were never kind to me.

I wish that made me the better person. I think maybe for a time, I was, but there comes a time as we age that selfishness starts to creep up in subtle ways; so subtle at times that it masquerades as selflessness and we don’t even know it’s there.

 

Do you know what it is you do to me?

Ha. Of course you do. It’s probably a little something like what I’ve done to you, except maybe it’s more. There’s so many memories, you know? Sitting ‘round the fire and talking—shouting—about what _he_ did ( _it was never going to work—he didn’t_ do _anything, that was always the problem)_ , but in the end it’s you who’ll break my heart and I think I’ve always known it. You knew it too—before I did—and that’s why you backtracked, twisted, stuttered. Lied. Again—about more than me and less than you.

Does that make it nothing? Or everything?

It can’t be _everything_ , because _you’re_ everything (don’t you know that yet? Don’t you _see?_ ) and I think I’m careening toward an inky, silken nothingness without you.

So then I guess it must be nothing, but it isn’t.

It’s the little things—the way your laughter lifts a room and fashions glorious butterflies from the nerves squirming inside my stomach. The sound is really something—like a window into a life without fear. Yes, I do love that sound.

Then it changed again, and they stole you back. We were stupid, weren’t we? To think otherwise. They’d never let us keep you—not _whole_ anyway—and we tried to dodge them, but they came. I’m sorry. _I’m so sorry._

It’s quiet now.

Too quiet.

It’s just me and the silence and the occasional flickering candle to keep me in the present. Such a shame. There’s a tantalizing pull to the past—to an us that existed too briefly _before_ , but never will again—and I can’t yield to it. Life won’t let me. Unfortunately, it won’t let you, either.

You _knew,_ and you tried to stop me, but that ship sailed away before I knew it’d docked. Don’t tell me you didn’t watch it go—you did. You breathed your laughter and pretty words into the air to fill its sails and _sent_ it off, even though you tried not to. We don’t get to choose. How many times do I have to tell you, darling? _We don’t get to choose._

It wouldn’t change things if we _did_. I’d have still chosen you—risk and all. There’s always been that thing about you. I don’t know _what_ exactly, but it’s that thing that keeps my logic, logic, _always logic_ , at bay. It used to be a curse—how _dare_ you? It’s not. It’s not a curse. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened and I’d trade the safety and the certainty of my logic for your heart every day of every week forever. I hate you for it, and for so many other things as well.

 

You know how much I love you, right? I hope so. If nothing else remains, I hope you’ll always know that one tiny, tethering _fact_. It’s time you knew, isn’t it? It’s only fair.

There are days when I want so much more from you. I want to see brand-new smile (you always did go on about how facing death and winning leaves you different)—so free and real and knowing.

It lights the whole damn sky on fire.

I’m content to watch it burn for decades if I can see it light your eyes just one more time—to see that flicker of absolute truth _,_ and that cool, strong steel. Unbreakable.

_Broken._

 

It’s just a white-washed sea of grey now, isn’t it? They grey is beautiful, of course, but it’s not _alive_. Not like you. Not like the waves of life that positively _radiate_ from you when you speak. Grey is just… grey now, and I suppose it’ll take some getting used to.

You can’t protect me anymore. It’s over. And I’m okay. What? Yes, I suppose I am lying, aren’t I? It’s just a tiny little white-lie though. You’d know a little something about telling those to protect the ones you love? I thought so. I understand now though—I really do. You were fucking right. It changed everything, and I didn’t even feel it happen. Now I’m upside down and inside out and I don’t know _what_ is right or wrong, but you warned me. You _knew_ and I didn’t listen.

Fuck you.

Fuck all of it.

The quiet, and the still. The fucking hum that _won’t shut up._

When I close my eyes I can feel you shake, you know? I can feel the earth shake. It’s all blood-red oozing on crisp white, and bones jutting from where they should be hidden. It’s broken skin and pale blue and that sickly-sweet smell that winds it tendrils around my neck as I dream.

I’d watch the sky burn for decades just to see you smile. Would I watch you burn for the same? I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I love you. I do.

When I open my eyes I’m cold, and the bed is cold. Cold and _empty._

_You’re gone._

It made you unbreakable. It gave you freedom in knowledge of absolute truths and a life without fear. Then it broke you.

What’s it going to do to me?

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
